The Old Man(99)
Spencer watched the first two SUVs clear the gate and follow the paved drive to approach the front of the house. The first two SUVs pulled forward to the second building and stopped, but the third stopped in front of the main house’s entrance. The headlights went out, returning the courtyard to night.
Spencer was mesmerized. He had been imagining a moment like this for the past two years. He had pictured this compound and thought of ways of getting in, and what he would do if he had the chance. But the place had changed, and there were so many men in these vehicles, and now there were cameras. He had come to the compound tortured by the idea that he might simply study the place all night and not find a way in. Then he was sure he had chosen the wrong night. But maybe this was the time.
He heard the car doors open and watched the occupants jump to the ground, and then step away from the vehicles. He watched men emerge from the first two vehicles before they shut the doors and the dome lights went off. They carried assault rifles as they walked to the farther two-story building and went inside. The first men into the building turned on lights, and he could see through the open door that the place was furnished like a barracks, with rows of bunk beds.
Spencer counted six men in each vehicle. The routine, the way this convoy had been organized, reminded him of the day when he had seen Hamzah going ahead of time to the place where he had agreed to meet. He had a growing hope that the important man in the vehicle parked below by the entrance to the house was Faris Hamzah.
The pair of watchmen he had seen on the first floor opened the main entrance’s double doors, letting a patch of light from the house spill out to the courtyard. Then they stood on the portico stiffly with their eyes straight ahead like an honor guard.
The two front doors of the SUV opened and the driver and a man in the front passenger seat got out carrying rifles. They took positions facing each other a few feet apart in the eight-foot space between the front steps and the side door of the SUV, their eyes scanning the middle distance, rising to look at nearby roofs, then to the side.
The side door of the SUV opened. Spencer could see a pair of legs wearing low black shoes and pressed khaki pants like a summer dress uniform ease out so they dangled from the seat. A thin metal shaft came out beside the right leg. A rifle? It extended farther. A cane?
Spencer stared. It was a cane. Faris Hamzah had been at least forty-five when he had met him more than thirty years ago. Of course he would be old. The two feet and the cane reached the ground. The man was visible from above, standing in the light from the open doors of the house, but Spencer couldn’t see his face.
He wanted to be sure. If this man wasn’t Faris Hamzah, Spencer was about to die for nothing. He gripped his pistol with his left hand and waited.
The man took a step, and then another. He pivoted to his right, toward the barracks, and looked at it for a moment. Then he turned to the left toward the rear of the SUV, and Spencer could see his face.
The face was old, and the hair, beard, and eyebrows were white, but he was Faris Hamzah.
Spencer slipped out of the storeroom and moved quickly down the hall to the space at the railing near the staircase, then looked down at the front entrance. Faris Hamzah stepped into his foyer and watched the two night watchmen close and lock the big double doors, and then slide the dead bolts into the floor. He spoke to them in low tones, and the two of them nodded, turned, and walked to one of the hallways leading away from the foyer.
Spencer hurried back to Hamzah’s bedroom, went into the walk-in closet, and shut the door. He knelt behind the large island that held drawers for clothes and shelves for shoes. In the darkness, he set the pistol with its silencer on the floor beside him and took out his knife. He had been hopeful for a minute that Hamzah would be alone in the house. The building was all stone and stucco, and he was sure he could fire his silenced pistol without being heard outside. But he couldn’t be sure that the two men downstairs would not hear a suppressed shot.
He waited. He heard footsteps, and then the door opening. A light came on in the room. He heard feet passing on the way to the bathroom, and then heard the door close. The toilet flushed and he heard the feet walk out and approach the closet.
The closet door swung open, and he heard the footsteps enter. He heard a drawer open, and then he stood and moved toward Faris Hamzah. There was a folded pair of pajamas in Hamzah’s hand when he half turned and saw Spencer. His eyes widened, he dropped the pajamas, and started to turn to run. Without his cane, he was too slow, and Spencer was on him in a second. Spencer pulled Hamzah’s head back and said in his ear in Arabic, “You should have left me alone.” Then he drew the blade of the knife across Hamzah’s throat and dropped him to the floor.
Hamzah lay on the floor bleeding, gripping the wound in both hands. At first the arterial blood spurted between his fingers, squirting the white dresser, blond hardwood floor, and white walls a few times, but he lost consciousness quickly and the blood flowed into a growing pool beside him.
Spencer wiped his hands and his knife on a suit that was hanging from the clothes rack, closed the blade, and put it in his pocket. He looked in the mirror to be sure his clothes hadn’t been painted, but they had. His left arm was red, and there was a streak of blood across his chest. He noticed a row of civilian outfits that looked like his own hanging nearby, and decided on the solution. He went through the bedroom into the bathroom, took off his bloody shirt and washed his hands, arms, and face. He checked his pants and shoes, and then he went back into the closet, took a long Libyan-style shirt, put it on, and then picked up his pistol and turned off the light as he left the closet.